'Ex Machina', here we come: A new algorithm helps computers learn the way we do

Machine learning is all about getting computers to "understand" new concepts, but it's still a pretty inefficient process, often requiring hundreds of examples for training. That may soon change, however, thanks to new research published on Friday.

Aiming to shorten the learning process and make it more like the way humans acquire and apply new knowledge based on just a few examples, a team of researchers has developed what they call a Bayesian Program Learning framework and then used it to teach computers to identify and reproduce handwritten characters based on just a single example.

Whereas standard pattern-recognition algorithms represent concepts as configurations of pixels or collections of features, the BPL approach learns by “explaining” the data provided to the algorithm -- in this case, the sample character. Concepts are represented as probabilistic computer programs and the algorithm essentially programs itself by constructing code to produce the letter it sees. It can also capture variations in the way different people draw a given letter.

The model also “learns to learn” by using knowledge from previous concepts to speed learning on new ones, so it can use knowledge of the Latin alphabet to learn letters in the Greek alphabet more quickly, for example.

Most compelling of all is that the algorithm allowed computers to pass a sort of "visual Turing test." Specifically, the researchers asked both humans and computers to reproduce a series of handwritten characters after being shown just a single example of each; in some cases, subjects were asked to create entirely new characters in the style of those originally shown. Bottom line: human judges couldn't tell the results apart.

The researchers have applied their model to more than 1,600 types of handwritten characters in 50 writing systems, including Sanskrit, Tibetan, Gujarati and Glagolitic. They even tried it on invented characters such as those from the television series "Futurama."

A paper describing the research was published Friday in the journal Science. Its authors were Brenden Lake, a Moore-Sloan Data Science Fellow at New York University; Ruslan Salakhutdinov, an assistant professor of Computer Science at the University of Toronto; and Joshua Tenenbaum, a professor at MIT in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines.

“It has been very difficult to build machines that require as little data as humans when learning a new concept,” said Salakhutdinov. “Replicating these abilities is an exciting area of research connecting machine learning, statistics, computer vision, and cognitive science.”

Channel Deals

Tely HD Pro & Wireless Audiopod

ARN Distributor Directory

ARN Vendor Directory

Slideshows

​Inside the new HP Customer Welcome Centre in Sydney…

HP unveiled its new Customer Welcome Centre (CWC) in Sydney this week, following on more than a year after the vendor opened the doors of its Experience Centre in Melbourne (MEC). The new space offers on-site HP technicians and visiting channel partners the ability to reconfigure equipment and put together tailored solutions based on the needs of individual end clients or target vertical markets. The centre can also be booked by customers and partners for meetings, events, workshops, seminars, and training. Photos by HP.

Zscaler Australia toasts the channel at Xmas drinks

Zscaler recently hosted its partner update and Christmas drinks event in Australia where more than 20 partners attended the event at the QT hotel in the Sydney. The event provided a forum for the company to update its Australian partners on the company's strategy for cloud security in the year ahead. It was also a great opportunity for the company to introduce Sean Kopelke as country manager for A/NZ. The event ended with Christmas drinks and a celebration of momentum gained in 2016.

IN PICTURES: ​Nutanix X Tours

Nutanix recently held two ‘X Tours’, which brought the company’s flagship event .NEXT to Brisbane and Melbourne. Customers and partners got a firsthand look at the new era of IT and exposure to the potential of the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud platform. Both events featured key speakers both from Nutanix and its partners.

iasset.com is a channel management ecosystem that automates all major aspects of the entire sales, marketing and service process, including data tracking, integrated learning, knowledge management and product lifecycle management.

Copyright 2016 IDG Communications. ABN 14 001 592 650. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of IDG Communications is prohibited.